Like Mother, Like Daughter is my first Kimberly McCreight novel and won’t be my last. It is fast-paced, told in dual POV, two timelines, multi-layered and emotional. There are transcripts from therapy sessions, emails, articles and journal passages breaking up the story. The love/hate relationship between mother and daughter was portrayed very well. The way the suspense and tension were executed captivated me, however the end was a bit anticlimactic. It’s still a good story and I enjoyed it. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4!

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

#NetGalley #likemotherlikedaughter #kimberlymccreight

This was a fast-paced, twisty, dual POV mystery thriller about a rocky relationship between a mother and daughter and the way they grow closer when the mother goes mysteriously missing and the daughter is determined to find out what happened.

I loved how this book was structured alternating from the past and present we see how the controling lawyer mother alienates her independent daughter, driving her away and how her marriage falls apart too. There's also past trauma we slowly learn about from a rape incident in the mother's past that comes back to haunt her in the present.

Moving and shocking in equal parts and great on audio read by in real life mother-daughter duo, Olivia and Cassandra Campbell with an ending I didn't see coming! Highly recommended for fans of authors like Gillian McAllister. This was my first book by Kimberly McCreight and definitely won't be my last! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!!

CW: rape

I picked this book up and set it down too many times to count. I finally finished it and was underwhelmed. I liked the dual POV'S. The characters were intriguing at first. Then it seemed to become predictable and I lost interest. I struggled to finish this one.

This was a very addicting story from the start. I couldn't wait to see what happened Kat. If you like your book filled with mystery and suspense you'll love this book. Highly recommend!


Many thanks for my gifted copy!

Overall, fast paced, addictive mystery/thriller that exams the nature of the relationship between a mother and a daughter alongside a missing person.

Told in two different POVs on two slightly different timelines, the reader is left wondering what happened when Kat went missing right up until the very end. Lots of misdirection as there are a few subplots at play (one of which was kind of confusing for me) but all mostly intersect in the end.

I really enjoyed seeing Cleo from all angles and seeing how the story transformed her beliefs and maybe even her values by the end. It was kind of hard to like Kat at times because she did seem so meddling, but by the end you realize Kat is very hard on herself and every time a misstep happened in her family she was ultimately blaming herself and her own ineptness at being a good mother...something many mothers do.

I enjoyed it and would certainly read more by this author.

⭐️(2/5) Like Mother, Like Daughter - Kimberly McCreight

✨Pages: 320

✨Genre: Thriller

I was so excited for this new summer thriller (out 07/30), as I loved “Friends Like These” and enjoyed “Reconstructing Amelia” & “Where They Found Her” by this author. But unfortunately this missed the mark for me.

Cleo has been at odds with her seemingly perfect mother Kat for a while now, resenting her for her meddling while she’s in college. Summoned home to Brooklyn from NYU for a talk, Cleo can’t find her mother-but finds blood. She begins digging, finding out there was so much about her mother that she didn’t know.

I enjoyed the dual perspectives of both Kat and Cleo, getting to know them both. I also liked the concept of shattering the perfect image you have of your parent when you finally recognize that they exist separate from motherhood. I just didn’t buy that this realization was coming to Cleo so late in life! I would have bought this more if she was still in high school. I found the excerpts of therapy sessions a bit forced, not quite propelling the story the way they were intended to. There was bit too much going on as well: Kat’s secret career, Cleo’s drug dealing ex boyfriend, Kat’s marriage, two different timelines and POVs….it culminated to being a fine but muddled forgettable thriller for me.

✨Content Warnings: Rape, Infidelity, Adult/Minor Relationship, Domestic Abuse, Suicide

✨Themes: Motherhood, Family, Secrets

This mother/daughter pair has been at odds and mostly estranged for quite some time when Cleo, the daughter agrees to have dinner with her mother, Kat. When Cleo shows up at her mother’s apartment, all she finds is a bloody shoe. While the police are treating the disappearance as a missing person incident, Cleo decides to begin her own investigation. It turns out that Kat possibly has many enemies. Although Kat works at a prestigious law firm, Cleo discovers that she is the firm’s fixer and has at least a couple of clients who are displeased with her services. Then, there is Katz’s mysterious past growing up in a group home in which something bad happened. Both the police and Cleo have some suspicions around Cleo’s father for various reasons and finally, Kat has been threatened by Cleo’s former drug dealer boyfriend and has been receiving blackmailing texts from an unknown source.
The story is told in alternating POVs and time frames, from Kat’s perspective leading up to her disappearance and Cleo’s after her mother goes missing. The author does a good job of portraying Cleo’s feelings of guilt and regret over the relationship between the women and her determination to make things right by finding Kat. I enjoyed the aspect of so many secrets and layers to the backgrounds of both characters that the possibilities of what happened to Kat were numerous, pulling the reader in many different directions. I liked the twist at the end and figured out who the guilty party was right before he/she was revealed. While I enjoyed Cleo’s ingenuity, I found her investigations a bit too far-fetched. But overall, this was an enjoyable read.

"People don't have to admit the whole truth to reveal the part that matters"

Hooked from the start. Cleo arrives to her childhood home to have dinner with her mom. They've been arguing a lot lately, while Cleo is away at college, and she isn't excited to be there. But, her mom isn't there. There's dinner burning in the oven, a smashed glass on the floor, there's blood and a shoe.

This kicks off the story. The chapters vary - you have chapters from Cleo's perspective and they are the "now", and you have chapters from the mom's POV - from the days leading up to her disappearance. It was such a compelling story, I couldn't help but flip the pages, wanting to know more. The mother and daughter's struggles to agree and the arguing they'd been doing, you can just feel the regret on every page.

But Cleo's mom has been keeping secrets and Cleo is determined to learn them. I loved the adventure of the story. All the twists weren't a surprise but they were well placed and I enjoyed this story. Well told, plotted, and paced. I loved it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

There is a LOT going on in this book. Two points of view (mother and daughter), therapist notes, text conversations, legal documents, and journal entries. There is the before and after the mother's disappearance, as well as the distant past. It's honestly a lot to keep track of - which makes this a good book to binge or to read when you know you have time to devote to this book. You don't want to put it down and pick it up days later, unless you're really good at keeping track of many characters and plot points. That being said, it's fast paced and interesting, so maybe you won't want to put it down in the first place.

Thanks to NetGalley for early access to this book.

Like mother, like daughter is a much hyped suspense thriller of the summer season. Cleo and her mother Katrina have a strained relationship and struggle to understand one another-especially in the wake of a divorce between Katrina and her husband. Cleo arrives to Katrina’s late for dinner as usual one and finds her mom missing and all that is left is a bloody shoe. Believing her mother to be in danger,
Cleo tries to find out what happened to her and finds much more than she bargained for on her quest for the truth.

Told in alternating pov between Cleo and Katrina and through various timelines, the heart of this story is truly the relationship between mother and daughter. As a thriller, the novel is suspenseful and information is slowly revealed. The pacing is pretty good-but I feel like there are parts where it dragged a bit. Overall, a well- done thriller that will please thriller fans and gain McCreight new fans!

Thanks to the publisher for providing this arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great read. Started off strong and kept my interest.

Cleo thinks she knows her strict, boring mother. But when she suddenly vanishes, Cleo quickly learns she knew very little about the woman she calls “mom”.

This book is great for mystery fans.

Thanks to #netgalley for the advanced copy #likemotherlikedaughter

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is a domestic thriller that shows what someone will do to protect family.

"Cleo and her mother, Kat, have a contentious relationship. Cleo shows up late for dinner and finds her mother is missing, leaving nothing but a bloody shoe. Something is definitely wrong.
Kat is more than a lawyer - she is a fixer for her firm. And she has made some enemies, inculding some from her murky past."

This book has a familiar setup. Something happens - then we get the backstory from the different characters and finally arrive at a conclusion. McCreight makes this one entertaining by keeping us guessing and giving us characters to yell at and dislike. Fictional characters often make terrible decisions (just like real humans) You won't guess the big twist (I guessed a part of it) There's a wild ending. I liked the resolution.
There was one thing that was left open that I wanted to know. (No spoilers though)

An excellent thriller from McCreight.

I absolutely loved Reconstructing Amelia when I read it a few years ago, so when I saw Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight was available, I jumped at the chance to read this thriller by the same author. Like the earlier book, this new one focuses on a mother/daughter relationship, this one was quite strained at the time of the mother's sudden disappearance. As Cleo investigates what may have happened to her mother, she discovers that a lot about the woman she had been so angry with was not what she had thought, and becomes more and more concerned for her mothers safety.

The book is written in two timelines, and from the differing perspectives of Cleo and her mother, Kat, with text messages from unidentified people and diary entries of Kat as a young person interspersed in the story. The overall effect is quite unsettling, as Cleo's story occurs after the disappearance, and Kat's happens in the days leading up to it. The twists were unexpected, and although some of it seemed not entirely believable, the resolution was for the mot part satisfying. There are several intertwining stories, leading to a lot of misdirection, so readers need to pay attention to avoid confusion.

Readers who enjoy domestic thrillers will love Kimberly McCreight's Like Mother, Like Daughter. Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the digital ARC. The opinions in this review are my own.

There are secrets, tension, family secrets, lies, and relationship issues galore in Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Cleo arrives at her mother's home to find burnt food in the oven and her mother's bloody shoe under the sofa. Where is her mother and what happened to her after she called Cleo and invited her over?

Cleo's missing mother, Kat (Katrina), is a fixer at her law firm. She grew up in a group home and is intelligent, tough, and good under pressure. Days before she invited Cleo over, Kat has become aware of several things, including a cover up, which are alarming and then there is the blast from her past!

This book is told through the POV's of both Cleo (beginning the day her mother went missing) and Kat (beginning 8 days prior to her going missing), therapy notes, journal entries and paperwork.

There was a lot going on in this book and although it was intriguing, it failed to wow me. I did like the characters of Cleo and Kat. The author brilliantly shows the dynamics of their mother/daughter relationship. That was a plus. For me there was too much going on in this book which made it a little messy for me.

There were a few twists, some suspense, tension, and reveals which helped to move the pace along at a nice pace. The writing was also very good; unfortunately, I liked this one but didn’t love it.

This the first book that I have read by this author and I am open to reading more of her books in the future.

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is a fast paced thriller set in New York. Cleo is a student at NYU, when she finally agrees to a family dinner at her mother’s house, she is met with food burning in the oven, and no sign of her mother, Kat. She quickly realizes something is very wrong when she finds her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. She calls her father who is just landing at the airport from a business trip, then she calls the police. Kat is a successful corporate lawyer, her house is perfect, her marriage is happy, her life is perfect, except of course for Cleo, who is nothing like her mother. She is rebellious, dating a known drug dealer who has Cleo helping with deliveries, she’s reckless, and her life is completely out of control. As Cleo becomes frustrated with the lack of support from the police department, she goes rogue and tries to find her mother on her own. What she uncovers is a past she had no idea existed. Kat grew up in a dangerous group home, until as a teenager she moves in with a woman who treats her as a daughter. Cleo also uncovers secrets her father is keeping, as well as a looming divorce her parents are headed for which she knew nothing about. When Cleo finds out her mother wasn’t just a lawyer, she was really the law firm’s ‘fixer’, and very good at it, but did she unearth something she shouldn’t have and that’s what has finally caught up with her? Cleo is beginning to understand she is very much like her mother, and she is determined to find her alive to right the wrongs before it’s too late.

This novel is a fast paced, suspenseful story that explores the sometimes difficult relationship between mothers and daughters. It’s a realistic portrayal of what can happen when you are more alike than different, but sometimes don’t see it until it’s too late. The plot is so well written, the mystery unravels and each turn is more shocking than the last. I never expected the ending, I thought I had it all figured it, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Well done, you really got me! Just a well executed story, with characters you will love, and many you will despise, and the shocking ending will leave your jaw dropped to the floor.

I would like to thank Netgalley, Knopf Publishing and Kimberly McCreight for an advanced ad copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. A solid 4.5 🌟!

Though I have a couple Kimberly McCreight books on my bookshelf, I haven’t been able to get around to reading them, yet. So, when I had the chance to read this one as an ARC, I jumped!

This was a story about family dynamics and basically, how no one is perfect. It’s a good reminder that we all make mistakes, but it doesn’t necessarily make us bad people.

I liked the mother/daughter dynamics at play. I also enjoyed the “what it seems” vs “how it actually is” ideal throughout the story.

Katrina and Cleo look alike and, unknown to both of them, act very much alike. It’s what helps Cleo find her mother, who has gone missing.

There is A LOT going on in this story. Some of it is relevant and some of it is just red herring. It was difficult to see where things were going for a while, but it’s worth the read!

Definitely emotionally suspenseful like the author says. I enjoyed Cleo's POV and her finding out how she is more like her mother than she thought. There was a lot going on and at times it was hard to keep it straight and a few of the subplots were unnecessary. That being said, it was fairly fast-paced and I did like the story. I am interested in reading more by this author.

Review live now on GoodReads and StoryGraph

Like Mother, Like Daughter is a thriller with some interesting twists and turns, not all of them expected! Kimberly McCreight has written a book that starts with a kick butt opening as seen by Cloe the daughter. In Chloe’s case the story moves forward day by day after the opening. Her mother’s story, Katrina starts about a week before the day and traces the situation day by day moving forward. It is this juxtaposition that allows the reader to anticipate events, kinda.

Chloe and her mother do not get along. They haven’t since Chloe was a teenager. Chloe, a wild child, trying out things with no pause and not taking any advisor. Katrina, is a lawyer for a big law firm. She seems strict and buttoned up. Then Chloe came for dinner to see her mom and found the dinner overcooked and burning and no Mom. There was blood on the floor and blood on a shoe pushed under the couch. On top of this when she calls the police and her dad, she discovers that her dad is not living at home and has been lying to her. Suffice to say she began to realize that not everything is as it seems with her family.

Chloe takes to investigating her mother’s life to find out what happened and where she might be. The police keep trying to slow Chloe down, worried for her with some of the reckless people that could be angered. What Chloe finds out about her family and friends, that she thought she knew - well she didn’t know them.

Moving forward I am going to look for more books by this author. I love how Chloe searched for her mom. I loved how her Mom stood watch over her. I loved how there were twists and turns that were unexpected. I love how the author used the two storylines with each character starting from a different spot. Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberely McCreight was a good thriller.

Fast past, plenty of twists, and more secrets than I saw coming! Cleo, a busy NYU student, has been requested by her mom to come home for dinner. When she arrives at her mom’s home, her mom is gone, and Cleo finds a shoe that belongs to her mom that is now bloody. As Cleo rushes to discover where her mom is, she makes more revelations about her mom, dad, herself even, and friends than she could have even imagined. All of these revelations are swirling as she tries to answer: what happened to my mom?

As I am someone who loves these kinds of books, this one did not disappoint. Luckily, I went into this book blind, since I have read one other book by this author. I read the book summary after finishing the book and recommend doing the same too. Some of the information given in the book summary ended up being twists to me. I was hooked right away, and the ultimate ending was very unexpected while still being believable and satisfying. The book had both dual POV’s and timelines. The characters felt very real. All this created the perfect thriller I flew through.

This is the second book I have read by Kimberly McCreight (first was A Good Marriage). Like Mother, Like Daughter has solidified her as an author that I would read any future books she publishes. Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Kimberly McCreight, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Exquisitely capturing the mother-daughter dynamic, McCreight blew me away with Like Mother, Like Daughter. From the multi-layered, finely plotted storyline to the ever rising suspense, my eyes were glued to the page from beginning to end. But the alternating dual POVs were the highest of the high in a well-packed field for me. With one cliffhanger chapter after another, I was spurred to continue reading just one more page far more times than I could count as the foreboding intensified and the what-ifs swirled about in my mind.

While all of the characters were expertly crafted, Cleo and Kat easily took the cake in the fight for stellar personas. Effortlessly illustrating the love-hate relationship between mother and daughter, the slow IV drip of secrets also revealed a mind-blowing character arc for Cleo. In the same way, I was equally enamored by Kat’s clever, take-no-prisoner personality as she sought to find out the truth. To be frank, both of these characters were utter perfection no ifs, ands, or buts.

In addition to the first-person dual POVs, the plot was strengthened by its alternating dual timelines of before and after. In both of them, I was firmly in the passenger seat in a wholly realistic way. For Cleo, she was desperately searching for what could’ve happened to her mother, while Kat’s timeline was decidedly more complex. I can’t reveal too much without providing a much hated spoiler, so just know that there was many a delicious subplot and dark, twisted revelation. Two for two, they both had my fingers flying at speed thanks to a Hitchcockian feel.

All in all, this tale of psychological suspense hit all the sweet spots for me—a twisty, dynamic plot; sharp, tenacious heroines at the center; and a downright killer conclusion. But then, that’s no surprise considering it came from Kimberly McCreight’s virtuoso-like mind. After all, she’s the Queen with a capital Q at crafting hypnotic characters so real that they could walk right off of the page. Not to be outdone, however, the situations they found themselves in had me utterly transfixed. A nuanced stunner, it was, without a doubt, yet another slam dunk from one of my favorite authors. Rating of 5 stars.

Thank you to Kimberly McCreight and Knopf Publishing for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.